GOOD NEWS FOR COMICON: Scientists identify enzyme responsible for body odor.
Archive for 2020
August 3, 2020
I BLAME NEVILLE CHAMBERLIN: Waiting for the Umbrella Man or someone like him.
Who can take a city, burn it to the ground? The Umbrella Man can, at least according to the search warrant affidavit filed by Minneapolis police officer Erika Christensen last week.
The Star Tribune’s Libor Jany told me he came across Christensen’s affidavit in a routine review of new court filings. He reported on the allegations of Christensen’s affidavit in “Minneapolis police say ‘Umbrella Man’ was a white supremacist trying to incite George Floyd rioting.” The story has made waves around the world.
According to Officer Christensen, Umbrella Man is a white supremacist who set off the week of riots and arson throughout the Twin Cities by knocking out the windows at AutoZone on Lake Street at Minnehaha Avenue in south Minneapolis on May 27. Did Umbrella Man also burn the AutoZone down? I can’t tell from Libor’s story, but it was in fact torched.
* * * * * * * *
Officer Christensen’s affidavit superimposes a mythical narrative over the events as we saw them unfold. Cockburn adds, by the way, that it took him “just a single minute on Google to discover rioting and destruction from May 26 — the day before Umbrella Man supposedly kicked everything off.” Spectator USA has made Cockburn’s column freely accessible at our request.
Officer Christensen, perhaps coincidentally, is “a frequent letter-writer to the Star Tribune” and the Minneapolis police department’s “rare ‘out’ liberal,” as she described herself in this Star Tribune column last year. See Christensen’s letters to the editor here (May 8, 2017) and here (March 25, 2019).
More here: Umbrella Man is the Lee Harvey Oswald of racism.
WELCOME TO THE PARTY, PAL: Seattle Police Chief Urges City to Oppose ‘Mob Rule’ After Rioters Target Her House.
ALL THE BEST PEOPLE TOLD ME THIS WAS IMPOSSIBLE: ICYMI: This Indian slum contained a possible COVID-19 disaster with hydroxychloroquine.
ROGER SIMON: Antifa Is the Natural Product of Our Educational System.
Antifa is an excruciating public manifestation of a very deep infection that has metastasized throughout our society from the schools.
It will only get worse if we don’t change our educational system—pronto.
Ironically, the beginnings of this change are one of the few, perhaps the only, good things to emanate from the pandemic.
With schools shut or online, many are evaluating whether the system serves our young people, practically (in terms of careers) or ideologically.
What kind of education is it when 95 percent of college professors vote Democrat, and mostly left Democrat at that?
Viewpoint diversity, anyone? Shall I home school my child? Shall I send him or her to college so they can come back Thanksgiving in an Antifa t-shirt and accuse me of being a capitalist pig when I just spent fifty grand for their tuition?
Something is wrong with this picture.
Read the whole thing.
FIRE AND REPLACE ‘EM — WITH VOUCHERS: Teacher’s union president says strikes probable in Texas, Arizona, Florida.
COLOR ME SKEPTICAL: Testing every two days, masks, distancing may limit COVID-19 spread at colleges.
NOTHING TO SEE HERE, MOVE ALONG: ‘Drone Swarm’ Invaded Palo Verde Nuclear Power Plant Last September — Twice.
PRIVACY: Data isn’t just being collected from your phone. It’s being used to score you.
Operating in the shadows of the online marketplace, specialized tech companies you’ve likely never heard of are tapping vast troves of our personal data to generate secret “surveillance scores” – digital mug shots of millions of Americans – that supposedly predict our future behavior. The firms sell their scoring services to major businesses across the U.S. economy.
People with low scores can suffer harsh consequences.
CoreLogic and TransUnion say that scores they peddle to landlords can predict whether a potential tenant will pay the rent on time, be able to “absorb rent increases,” or break a lease. Large employers use HireVue, a firm that generates an “employability” score about candidates by analyzing “tens of thousands of factors,” including a person’s facial expressions and voice intonations. Other employers use Cornerstone’s score, which considers where a job prospect lives and which web browser they use to judge how successful they will be at a job.
Brand-name retailers purchase “risk scores” from Retail Equation to help make judgments about whether consumers commit fraud when they return goods for refunds. Players in the gig economy use outside firms such as Sift to score consumers’ “overall trustworthiness.” Wireless customers predicted to be less profitable are sometimes forced to endure longer customer service hold times.
It’s a brave new world.
CHINA IS ASSHOLE: Coronavirus Shock Claim: Refugee Scientist Says Virus Came from Army Lab.
Just to be clear, we’re referring to the Communist People’s Republic of China on the mainland, and not the well-run Republic of China on Taiwan.
BOYCOTTS, ‘CANCEL CULTURE’ LOSE THEIR APPEAL FOR MANY AMERICANS:
Consider the GOYA boycott organized by progressive lawmakers and activists in mid-July after Goya Foods CEO Robert Unanue publicly voiced support for President Trump. A vigorous national “BUYcott” of GOYA products from those who supported Mr. Unanue quickly followed, as did additional support.
“Did any of these boycotters stop to think about the impact their actions would have on the more than 13,000 bodegas in the Big Apple — and on hundreds of thousands more stores all over the country that sell Goya products, a staple of the Hispanic dining table? Did they stop to think about the thousands of black and Latino workers Goya employs?” asked Francisco Marte, secretary of the New York Bodega and Small Business Association, writing in a recent op-ed for The New York Post.
A simple GoFundMe effort launched in mid-July was intended to raise $10,000 to buy GOYA products and distribute them to food banks. The effort has raised $328,000 as of Monday. GOYA food donations are now arriving in multiple states — and soon — to national food bank warehouses that can distribute large deliveries.
The article goes on to mention Trader Joe’s also pushing back against cancel culture. At Ricochet, Bethany Mandel writes, “How to Handle to Mob: Stop Apologizing:”
Ellen [DeGeneres] and her producers need to take the Trader Joe’s tactic: responding to a petition that some of their labels were racist, the supermarket chain pushed back and defended themselves, saying they are not racist and they’re not going anywhere. After the first statement about justifiably troubling workplace behavior, this is what those involved in the show should have done with repeated reports of workplace malcontent. “We are sorry that these individuals speaking to you off-the-record are not happy working on one of the most successful shows in daytime history. They know how to contact HR with a resignation letter and are invited to do so at their earliest convenience.”
That’s an idea that even works in newsrooms: The Wall Street Journal hits back at staff’s ‘cancel culture.’
The New York Times might even want to give it a try. As Glenn noted in USA Today when Bari Weiss resigned from the New York Times over its stifling uber-woke culture, “The proper response to a bunch of junior staffers complaining about articles that a newspaper publishes is something between ‘Go, write a piece explaining why that piece is wrong’ and ‘Fetch my latte.’ Journalism jobs are hard to come by and, for every troublesome staffer at The Times, there are undoubtedly at least a dozen candidates out there who would do at least as good a job and with less overweening self-importance.”
JOSH BLACKMAN IN NEWSWEEK: A Supreme Court Divided Cannot Stand. John Roberts Must Step up or Step Off.
WHO? BidenWatch for August 3, 2020. “Biden promises to shovel trillions into Social Justice and green energy ratholes, how Democrats plan to steal the election, more Slow Joe verbal stumbles, and a potential VP pick has a commie past.”
DECOUPLING: Kodak a first step: Trump White House plans new ways to break Chinese supply chain dominance. “‘It doesn’t mean we can’t buy from certain sources. But you’ve got to think about it like a backup generator. You’ve got to have those sources in the United States, too.’ – White House official.”
WELL, THIS IS THE 21st CENTURY, YOU KNOW: New Hampshire legalizes ‘flying cars’ for the road.
VODKAPUNDIT PRESENTS YOUR DAILY INSANITY WRAP: NBA and MLB Are So Woke and So Broke.
Insanity Wrap needs to know: Why does no mean no except when the DNC needs no to not mean no?
Answer: Let us concede that it was a very dumb question.
Before we get to the sordid details, here’s a quick preview of today’s Wrap:
• Crime up, cops down.
• BLM gives MLB and NBA a black eye.
• Best. Mask. EVAH.
Plus so much more at the link, you’d have to be crazy to miss it.
LIEUTENANT KIJE, CALL YOUR OFFICE: Woke academia was heartbroken recently when the ASU LGBTQ Native American Anthropology professor who posted on Twitter as @sciencing_bi supposedly died of COVID, after being forced by her university to teach in person. ASU, however, has been unable to identify any such professor. Questions abound.
IN THE MAIL: The Socialist Temptation.
PERFORMANCE ANXIETY: Democrats Urging Biden Not to Debate Trump.
ELECTION THOUGHTS FROM SCOTT ADAMS:
You don't have to be a Trump supporter to recognize that this ad is kinda perfect. https://t.co/jTwfnCh2cG
— Scott Adams (@ScottAdamsSays) August 3, 2020
WHEN IT RAINS, IT POURS: China’s Giant Three Gorges Dam Faces Major Test.
Sustained torrential rains have caused extensive flooding in central China in recent weeks. Nightmare memories have been revived of 1998, when severe floods left more than 4000 people dead and caused extensive economic damage. Thousands of People’s Liberation Army soldiers have been sent to the Yangtse River basin to provide emergency services to build dykes, enforce embankments and dig channels to release water.
In response to the build-up of floodwaters upstream, authorities have been discharging large amounts of water from the dam. The swell of water caused by upstream flooding reached 55,000 cubic meters per second late last week, exceeding the official warning level of 50,000 cubic meters. The emergency discharges have inevitably exacerbated flooding in areas downstream from the dam.
Massive flooding along the Yangtze is nothing new for China. In 1931, more than 3 million people died during a huge flood in one of the worst natural disasters of the 20th century. Nevertheless, the current situation is the first major test that the Three Gorges Dam has been put to.
There is no reason to think that the structure of the dam itself is under threat.
Other than the fact that Communist QC isn’t exactly top-notch.
THAT’S OKAY, THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY DOESN’T DEPEND MUCH ON YOUNG VOTERS ANYWAY: VIDEO: Young Americans say Kamala Harris is an ‘inappropriate’ choice for VP given her law enforcement background.
WHY LIBERALS DON’T UNDERSTAND MIDDLE AMERICA: Matt Taibbi gets Thomas Frank, who wrote: “Why shouldn’t our culture just get worse and worse, if making it worse will only cause the people who worsen it to grow wealthier and wealthier?” Put another way, progressives are [culture] war profiteers.
No wonder our culture continues its slide into alienation, division, and coarseness. Middle America is under attack, which makes the Trump ascension entirely understandable. If progressives keep it up, they will deservedly fail much like Operation Barbarossa, exhausted, over-extended and suffering unremitting counter-attacks.
I don’t agree with all of his analysis, but Taibbi’s review of Frank’s latest book — “The People, No: A Brief History of Anti-Populism” — should be required reading for all journalists, political junkies, elected officials, bloggers Left and Right, etc. etc.
Taibbi begins to remind me of James Burnham, the former leftie whose 1964 book “Suicide of the West: An Essay on the Meaning and Destiny of Liberalism” remains as relevant today as it ever was.